Often the exploitation areas of useful mineral substances through quarry works are compared, in appearance, with selenary landscapes (large areas of land, geologically disturbed, strongly modified physically and morphologically and almost completely devoid of vegetation and fauna). In this paper, a former mining perimeter for the exploitation of bauxite ore was studied. The area of interest is located in Hunedoara county (Ohaba - Ponor locality), more precisely the Comarnic - Poieni mining perimeter. In this case, at the end of productive activities, and for a long time after that, the landscape in the quarry’s area brought more with a martian surface, rather than a selenary one, due to the reddish-brown color of the bauxite ore. Given the fact that, despite the legal regulations, at the end of the extractive activities no ecological reconstruction works were carried out on the perimeter, we set out to analyze how and to what extent nature managed to repair this “wound” in the landscape (otherwise characterized by spectacular landscapes and in fact included in the Grădiștea Muncelului - Cioclovina Natural Park). For this purpose, a series of comparisons were made of some photographic materials made between 1995 and 2004, with some recent ones made by the authors during field visits, between 2017 and 2020, comparisons that highlight the general trends of landscape evolution in the studied area under the exclusive influence of natural factors. Also on the occasion of these documentary visits, there were observed areas where time seemed to stand still, ie areas where nature has not yet managed to repair the damage done by man, but also areas of modeling, through shallow landslides, still active. Also, some considerations were made related to the plant species re-installed spontaneously in the studied area, finally being made a framing of the landscape in accordance with the rules indicated by the literature.

Quarry, bauxite, landscape, Ohaba - Ponor, visual analysis

environmental engineering

Presentation: oral